Texas Group Calls on Lawmakers to Fund Pro-Family Textbooks
by Jim Brown
July 6, 2005
(AgapePress) - As Texas lawmakers continue to haggle over the state's education budget, a pro-family group is urging the legislature to include funding for new middle and high school health textbooks that emphasize abstinence.
Both the Texas House and Senate have passed school finance bills that give teachers a raise, lower taxes, and require all schools in the state to begin classes after labor day. Also, the Senate version of the legislation increases the amount of money districts get for bilingual education. However, the bills in both chambers lack funding for the new textbooks.
The group Texas Eagle Forum is calling on the state lawmakers to subsidize abstinence-based textbooks that define marriage as between a man and a woman. The Texas Board of Education approved the health textbooks last year. But Mary Lynn Gerstenschlager says the recently passed education funding bills fail to address the textbook issue.
"That's one thing that's very, very important to us," Gerstenschlager says. "These are abstinence-based health textbooks, and we would like very much to see the kids get these. They haven't had a new health textbook in almost ten years."
The Texas Eagle Forum spokeswoman says the state legislature needs to hear from concerned pro-family citizens about funding the textbooks. "These books are printed," she points out, "and they're sitting on loading docks waiting for delivery. And we could still get them to the classrooms if the legislature would act."
Texas lawmakers have until July 20 to hammer out an agreement on school finance legislation. Texas Eagle Forum president Cathie Adams asserts that the state's pro-family citizens want their school-age children to be taught "moral health" consistent with what they are taught at home -- a goal she says is best accomplished when parents and school board members work together.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
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